Harvard Enterprise College (HBS) reached out final 12 months to create a case research on my entrepreneurial journey, which tracks me from childhood to the present day. The case research, titled “Tim Ferriss: What May This Look Like If It Have been Straightforward?” is roughly 40 pages, and you should buy it for $11.95 right here. I don’t earn a penny. The entire expertise culminated in two courses at HBS in Professor Satchu’s “Founder Mindset” course.
Following one of many courses, scholar Jay Bhandari interviewed me for the “Between Two Lessons” collection at The Harbus, a publication by Harvard Enterprise College college students, who kindly gave permission to share it with you right here.
I hope you discover one thing beneath helpful.
In a Q&A together with your followers, you talked concerning the worth of id diversification. This method is antithetical to recommendation we frequently get to commit and give attention to a site. How do you reconcile these two competing philosophies?
I feel they complement one another somewhat than compete. Identification diversification merely means cultivating a number of, impartial areas of progress in your life the place you’ll be able to chart progress. That is engineered in order that your self-worth isn’t totally depending on one factor, such because the common ups and downs of your personal startup. Being overinvested will get a variety of media play and X threads, however there’s a nasty survivorship bias at work. I’ve seen dozens of founders implode as a result of their “startup as self-worth” metrics went sideways for a number of months. I favor an method with extra margin of security, and it’s totally suitable with area mastery. As an example, you might very nicely spend 40 to 80 hours per week in your startup, however when you complement that with indoor mountaineering, weight coaching, chess membership, or one thing else that has its personal metrics for progress, even when new rules or a competitor tank your startup for a brief stretch, you’ll be able to nonetheless offset the blow with progress exterior of the workplace. It’s low cost psychological insurance coverage. I consider id diversification as an enormous aggressive benefit in video games that rely on endurance. On the highest ranges, that’s just about all the things. If Michael Jordan may afford to play copious quantities of golf and poker, you’ll be able to afford to have aspect pursuits.
Is there something about your life you want you had centered on sooner? In case you may spend time with 28-year-old you, what would you inform him?
To my youthful self: meditate twice each day—10 minutes is a lot—and get accelerated TMS as quickly because it’s prepared for showtime. See my different solutions for elaboration. I’d in all probability additionally share an embroidered quote I purchased at a thrift store in Marfa, Texas: “At this time is the tomorrow you frightened about yesterday.”
What do you suppose younger bold individuals are over- and under-indexed on?
I feel HBS college students are over-indexed on shopping for the implicit funding banking and administration consulting pitch of one thing like “get broad publicity to industries after which you’ll be able to choose your lane and do something!” In case you’re non-technical and keep in both of these for quite a lot of years, the percentages of you leaving to begin your personal startup (exterior of finance or consulting) is roughly the identical because the chance of a five- to 10-year entrepreneur becoming a member of funding banking or consulting. In different phrases, low. I’ve seen this play out 100+ instances. Positive, there are some exceptions, however I wouldn’t wager on being one in all them until you’ve dedicated to an exit plan earlier than you enter these video games. And if you wish to be an edge case, discover and research at the least 5 to 10 edge instances you might emulate earlier than you settle for the job. In case you can’t discover them, that tells you one thing.
Many within the HBS, Kind-A crowd are not any stranger to emphasize, anxiousness, and despair. What are ideas, mantras, and techniques you’ve developed for managing your psychological well being once you’re actively in a darkish place?
To be clear, I’m not a physician and don’t play one on the web. The “actively in a darkish place” makes this a really dicey query. That mentioned, having spent a while in darkish locations, particularly in faculty, I’ll share a number of issues that I’ve seen work. Please do your personal homework and communicate together with your medical professionals.
For acute suicidal ideation, I’d name the 988 helpline first and doubtlessly take into account a collection of ketamine infusions/injections per the protocols urged by John Krystal, MD, professor of neuroscience at Yale College. Ketamine could be very addictive, and I’ve seen folks unravel their lives with it, however in harmful self-harm circumstances, it may be a life-saving intervention. It successfully pauses the incessant thought loops driving the desperation. For extra of my ideas on suicide, together with my description of a detailed brush in 1999, learn tim.weblog/suicide.
If we’re speaking about basic prevention and self-care, I’d extremely recommend each day chilly publicity (e.g., I do 3–5 minutes in a 40–45° F bathtub each day) and quick meditation periods 2x/each day (e.g., Transcendental Meditation for 20 minutes twice a day or The Method App with Henry Shukman for 2 10-minute periods). I usually meditate instantly upon waking after which once more earlier than dinner or mattress. That is lower than half-hour a day. Do your pre-hab, and also you’ll want much less rehab.
When you’ve got a historical past of trauma, see tim.weblog/trauma for an inventory of assets that I and designer Debbie Millman have discovered efficient. Set off warning: it’s not a enjoyable learn, nevertheless it may be useful for some. Your mileage might differ.
For treatment-resistant despair, I’d take into account accelerated TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation), à la the SAINT protocol co-developed by Dr. Nolan Williams at Stanford College. BrainsWay and MagVenture each make compelling units with totally different approaches. I firmly consider TMS and different types of mind stimulation can have near-immediate and sturdy results that rival the consequences of psychedelics in outcomes. I say that as somebody who’s funded a variety of the science associated to psychedelics since 2015 by my non-profit, Saisei Basis.
As soon as authorized, and assuming you don’t have any household historical past of schizophrenia, borderline persona dysfunction, psychosis, and so forth., I would recommend investigating varied psychedelic-assisted therapies for despair (e.g., psilocybin) on a once-annual cadence, however there are extra recognized dangers than with mind stimulation like TMS. As an example, and I’ve seen this firsthand, combining ayahuasca and SSRIs will increase the chance of serotonin syndrome, which could be life-threatening in extreme instances. Regard any of those compounds with the identical respect you’d deal with main neurosurgery. For extra schooling on the science, functions, and doable mechanisms of motion, I recommend the analysis of Dr. Gül Dolen and Dr. Nolan Williams, in addition to the Netflix miniseries based mostly on Michael Pollan’s e book of the identical title, How you can Change Your Thoughts. The MDMA and psilocybin/mushroom episodes are notably sturdy.
Final however not least, don’t ignore eating regimen. Learn up on “metabolic psychiatry” and Dr. Chris Palmer, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical College. Ketosis and different interventions can produce practically miraculous outcomes for plenty of psychiatric circumstances, together with these which can be strongly contraindicated with psychedelics, like schizophrenia.
In case you have been beginning over at the moment in 2025 and have been in your late twenties, what would you be doing?
I’d be in search of fast-growing industries which can be unsexy and underneath the radar, and I’d intention to affix a startup of fewer than 100 folks, the place I’d be capable of watch deal-makers making offers and making choices. In distinction, when you’re attempting to create an AI startup like everybody else, it’s going to be a crabs in a bucket state of affairs for 99% of the folks concerned. Positive, you may be the tremendous crab 1%, however I typically favor much less crowded areas, the place you’ll be able to usually get extra common interplay with the A+ gamers.
Let’s take luck out of the image. What expertise, habits, mantras, or areas of non-public progress would you most attribute your success to?
Taking part in the lengthy recreation and never being in a rush. I select initiatives and a variety of investments based mostly on the educational, talent growth, and relationships that can transcend them. In case you permit such issues to snowball over time, ultimately the essential mass makes success nearly inevitable. This would possibly sound hand-wavy, however you’ll be able to method it systematically. Go to tim.weblog/mba or Google “Tim Ferriss real-world MBA” for some angel-investing examples of how I’ve utilized this. This isn’t the one method I’ve seen work for “success” (harmful phrase, that!), nevertheless it appears replicable.
In case you may put a message on a billboard that reaches HBS college students, what would it not be?
I’d borrow from Dr. BJ Miller, a hospice doctor who’s helped 1000’s of individuals to navigate dying, whose reply was “Don’t consider all the things that you simply suppose.”
Reprinted with permission from The Harbus Information Company. All rights reserved.
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